A retiree showed that knowing arithmetic can be very profitable. Jerry Selbee and his wife Marge have won dozens of winning tickets in two US state lotteries. In all, they made $26 million between 2003 and 2012. “It took me less than two minutes to realize that this game could be profitable,” said Jerry Selbee.
The story became a movie, released last month: Jerry & Marge Go Large. Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening star in the Paramount film directed by David Frankel, famous for The Devil Wears Prada. The film is loosely inspired by the real story, but seeks to reflect the couple’s simplicity despite winning the lottery numerous times.
‘It’s just basic arithmetic’
The couple spent their entire lives in the sleepy town of Everett, Michigan. Jerry Selbee had just retired when he came across an advertisement for the Windfall lottery game. He read the ad in detail and noticed a great opportunity. “I found a quirk,” Selbee said in an interview with CBS.
To win the lottery, the player needed to match all six tens. If no one got it right, the prize pool was divided among those who matched five, four and three numbers. Therefore, the chances of winning by putting a good amount of money in tickets are much higher than in draws that do not divide the prize between several winners.
According to Selbee, buying 1100 dollars, he would get at least one winning ticket out of 4 dozen. “From 18 (tickets) I won $1,000 for a 4-number winning ticket and 18 three-number winners worth about $50 each, which is about $900. So spending $1,100, I got about $1,900 back,” he said. “It’s just basic arithmetic,” added the retiree.
A company to manage lottery winnings
On average, Americans spend $80 billion annually on the state lottery, $250 per person. Selbee invested a little more than that average and it didn’t take long to raise the stakes. He started investing $3,600, getting back $6,300. Then he invested $8,000 and pocketed $16,000. At that point, he revealed to his wife what he was doing.
From there, the values grew and the couple decided to open a company, GS Investment Strategies LLC, to manage the prize money they won. Later, the Selbee invited other people from their community, selling them shares in the company. One of the biggest prizes was $853,000.
However, the Windfall Michigan lottery has ceased operations. A friend of the couple warned that in the state of Massachusetts, there was a similar lottery. And this was also repeated in lotteries in other states. For six years, the couple traveled across six states to use lottery ticket machines at two stores and play Cash Windfall.
They played as much as $600,000 seven times a year. “It’s a pleasure to be successful in something that paid off not just for us personally, but also for our friends and family.”
Was the couple doing something illegal?
The ‘business’ closed in 2012 after 18 million lottery tickets were purchased. A journalistic investigation by The Boston Globe newspaper showed that there were stores with lottery ticket vending machines in Massachusetts that had a high level of winners.
The couple was not alone. A group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), also played a lot in Cash Windfall. This prompted state authorities to launch an investigation to determine whether there was any wrongdoing. However, prosecutors found that nothing was wrong.
“I was shocked, surprised, that these nerdy math geniuses found a legal way to win the state lottery and pocket millions out of it,” Greg Sullivan, an inspector who led the investigation, told CBS.
The scheme promoted by the students or the Seelbee couple did not prevent other Cash Windfall players from matching all six numbers, something that would end the investments. This type of drawing has ended and there are currently no lotteries in the United States that guarantee such high return probabilities.
